In 2018, Kenneth S Rogoff, a professor of economics at Harvard University and a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, predicted bitcoin was more likely to be worth $100 than $100,000 in a decade.
In reality, bitcoin’s price rose above $100,000 this year, a 10-fold increase from March 2018’s sub-$10,000 level when Rogoff predicted the crash.
On Tuesday, with bitcoin hovering around $113,000, Rogoff reflected on how he had missed the mark, saying he had been “far too optimistic about the U.S. coming to its senses regarding sensible cryptocurrency regulation.”
In a post, Harvard economist Ken Rogoff expressed that he’d expected policymakers to adopt a firm stance to curb the use of cryptocurrencies in tax evasion and illegal activities. He criticized the regulatory environment as being insufficiently prudent, allowing cryptocurrencies like BTC to flourish in ways he did not anticipate.
Rogoff underestimated how bitcoin would compete with fiat currencies as the transaction medium of choice in the $20 trillion global underground economy.
“This demand puts a floor on its price, as I discuss at length in my new book Our Dollar, Your Problem,” Rogoff stated.
He also flagged a “blatant conflict of interest,” with regulators “holding hundreds of millions (if not billions) of dollars in cryptocurrencies seemingly without consequence.”
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